Wireless communication systems have become ubiquitous in society. Business and consumers use a wide variety of fixed and mobile wireless terminals, including cell phones, pagers, Personal Communication Services (PCS) systems, and fixed wireless access devices (e.g., vending machine with cell phone capability). Wireless service providers continually try to create new markets for wireless devices and expand existing markets by making wireless devices and services cheaper and more reliable. The prices of wireless devices have decreased to the point where nearly everyone can afford them. To continue to attract new customers, wireless service providers are implementing new services, especially digital data services that, for example, enable a user (or subscriber) to browse the Internet and to send and receive e-mail.
Mobile stations (e.g., cell phones, PCS handsets, portable computers, telemetry devices, and the like) frequently drop calls. The dropping of a call may occur when a mobile station temporarily moves behind an obstruction (e.g., a building) so that the radio frequency signals between the base station and the mobile station are blocked.
The mobile station comprises a fade timer that keeps track of how much time elapses after the mobile station has received a bad frame. If a prior art mobile station receives a bad frame then the fade timer waits for five (5) seconds after the bad frame has been received. If the mobile station receives two (2) consecutive good frames within the five (5) second period, then the mobile station resets the fade timer (to await the next bad frame) and the call continues. If the mobile station does not receive two (2) good consecutive good frames within the five (5) second period, then the mobile station declares the call a failure, cancels the call, releases the mobile station resources, and waits for (or makes) the next call attempt.
Therefore, in prior art wireless networks, if a call is going to fail, the resources for the call are going to be consumed for a full five (5) seconds before the call is determined to be a failure. This method is an inefficient method for handling call release. The disadvantage of this prior art method is that the call resources are wasted for five (5) seconds in those cases where the chances of a successful call are not very high.
The telecommunication industry is presently moving toward increasing the speed of the call set up procedure. This is being done by eliminating some of the intermediate handshaking signals between the base station and the mobile station. As the speed of the call set up procedure is increased, the chances of call failure also increase. Using a full five (5) seconds to declare that a call has failed will not be efficient for the higher speed call set up procedures. The release of a failed call must be accomplished more quickly so that the next call attempt may be made more quickly.
Therefore, there exists a need for an improved system and method for more efficiently declaring a call failure and performing the release of a call between a base station and a mobile station. There also exists a need for an improved system and method that minimizes the use of base station resources and mobile station resources when a call between the base station and the mobile station is released.